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For those of you who insist that Apple brings back the matte screen option, please leave a comment at http://macmatte.wordpress.com">http://macmatte.wordpress.com - it's a website solely focused on the issue of bringing back the matte screen. See the number of pro-matte comments already at the MacMatte website. Reply

I am trying to identify if a new macbook pro 13" would be adequate for editing with Final Cut Express, and for that matter, Final Cut Studio. Unfortunately, it has a 5400rpm hard drive and that is not good for editing. But, I wonder if an optional ssd would be fast enough??

I would use the 13" for more mobile work and dock it with a larger monitor for more involved editing work.

Hope the quality of the components is better than the first gen MacBook Pro's. Mine is on its second H/D, gone through 2 logic boards and now needs a third, this time outside of warranty. Wont be buying another Apple again which is a pity because OSX is great. Reply

You photos comparing the glossiness and reflection on the screens was not fair, though. Please notice that the laptop on the right (the new MBP) is reflecting a portion of wall that has direct sunlight shining on it, and the laptop on the left is reflecting stuff that's in shadows. So even if the screens were equally reflective, the one on the right would show tons more reflections.

nop, you are wrong. Both of them reflect stuff that have direct sunlight. Notice Anand's reflection for instance, or the wall on the left hand side of the old MB and the wall on the right hand side on the new one.

Anand, why don't you test Vista installing it on the new MacBook Pro without using Bootcamp, you need to wipe out the drive and create a MBR partition and use Vista x64 SP1 (it supporta EFI), the only thing you need to know is that at startup you have to press the Alt key and manually select the Windows disk in order to boot from it, beside that everything else seems to work just fine with the Vista native installation (tested on a white MacBook Penryn 2.4 GHz 4GB ram).
It would be very interesting to see if you get the same exact battery life numbers bypassing Bootcamp. Reply

I have brand new Vaio Z laptop and I can get 5 hours battery life IF I disable Vista sidebar. It does not matter whether there's no widgets running, it seems to use 10-15% of CPU time no matter what. This translates into a big loss of runtime - I'd get 3.5 hours versus 5. Unfortunately, I like Sidebar as there are some useful widgets, as well as for eye candy so I feel Vista is crippled without it.

So the question is whether you disabled Sidebar during Vista testing? I am guessing not since it runs by default and if so, that may be part of your answer. Reply

Having spoken to a few Apple developers I know, the reason for this oddity is Nvidia's software implementation for Mac OS 10.5. While the ideal situation was for them to be able to switch on the fly, the agreement between Apple and Nvidia to develop for the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros happened so quickly it left little time to create a proper application that would allow for this (think of how you had to restart your computer to turn SLI on or off: same slapdash type of programming).

The hope is that quick-toggling between integrated and dedicated graphics will come with Mac OS 10.6 as it may be too large of an update to patch Mac OS 10.5. It also makes sense in this aspect as Mac OS 10.6 also includes OpenCL GPGPU algorithms, which Nvidia is already promoting and developing under their CUDA platform. Reply

On my Thinkpad T-400 with switchable graphics all that is needed to switch is to go to the taskbar icon and click switchable graphics and choose what you want and the screen goes dark for a second and thats it. Reply

I'll test it sometime this week, but on my Lenovo T61 it seems like I get much more life out of Ubuntu than I do Vista 64-bit. Could be a windows thing in general, not just something that OS X does better.

I bought the new 2.0GHz MacBook last week as my first Mac and can say I'm not disappointed. The whole chassis feels as solid as, well, a block of aluminum! As Anand said, it feels like you get what you paid for. I actually like the multi-touch gestures, such as swiping with 3 fingers to flip pages and for back/forward when web browsing. I'd like to see iTunes also support that gesture. Two finger scolling is another great feature not mentioned in this article. What I don't like though is the stiffness of the mouse click. It takes far more pressure than any mouse and that required pressure is uneven in different areas of the trackpad. Pressing near the top requires more pressure than near the bottom. As for lack of standard SSD, Anand, perhaps you're a little too spoiled by that speed! I would not expect that as standard on even the fastest MacBook Pro at current prices. That is, unless you'd like to see the asking price for a MBP $500-600 more than it is now. Reply

Very interesting to read your conclusions about better power management in MacOS vs Vista. This matches my experiences running Vista on the BootCamp partition of my Core Duo MacBook, and is the first time I've seen this discussed anywhere on the web. I found that with a main battery in quite poor condition after two years constant use, it became impossible to use Vista on battery power for more than a minute without the battery deciding it was empty and putting the machine into sleep mode. Under MacOSX the system could still be used for 30min+ (light use) before the same thing happened.

I'd come to the conclusion that Apple were deliberately playing games with the ACPI tables to confuse Vista's power management code and make their own OS look better. This seemed to be supported by the fact that Vista is unable to correctly detect the charging state on my MacBook - running on battery power it would always report "Connected to mains, not charging". Does it still work that way on the latest MacBooks? In any case, your data does seems to suggest the problem is a more general issue with Vista. Sounds like you should investigate further...

I wonder if OS X lasting longer on a battery can be transfered to the world of none portable?

In other words say I run OS X on my daily, none laptop, work machine doing surfing, writing and perhaps listening to music(FLAC prefered over MP3) or even watching an episode of The Daily Show. Will this draw less power from the wall with a PC running OS X than with the same machine running Windows (and is there a difference between Windows versions). Also Linux should be included in the test.

Imagine the perspective - with the whole green computing movement this could really make a difference not just in the server rooms.

Please do check this out - this is not only interesting for us geeks but could make Anandtech something referred to by none-tech news media. Reply

It doesn't matter. 2 GB of memory (2 Dimms) cost about $80, and 4 GB cost about $120, as stated in the article. But Apple is charging $150 to upgrade from one to the other, when it only costs $40 more.

Thanks for correcting me, because Apple is raping their customers even more than I thought. Reply

Might be true, but as you can't choose zero RAM as a shipping configuration, from the customer perspective (assuming 2 2GB sticks are needed) you either pay $120 to Newegg and do the work yourself or pay $150 to Apple.

Also, I highly doubt Apple is paying Newegg prices for components, so even more profit. But RAM upgrades seem to always be something the manufacturers have raped customers on. Reply

No 1680x1050? When will Apple step up and offer this? This is even more egregious than the lack of an SSD option, although, an SSD could be added to the MBP later, and the screen is forever.

The MBP should only offer the CPU models with 6MB cache. This would have been one more way to differentiate the MBP from the MB. Put the Pro in Pro dammit.

No matte option on the MBP? Please.

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I upgraded my 2.16GHz Merom to a 2.4GHz Penryn, largely for the LED screen, but, now I've even more glad that I did.

If Apple does not add some flexibility to the 15" MBP build options, I'll be waiting for the 17" MBP. My workplace bought me one, and... 1920x1200 LED is pure love, though I could live happily with a 1680x1050 on my preferred form factor, the 15".

Apple has a knack of diminishing their gains with some weird regresions and non-moves. It's love hate for sure. Reply

But all iJokes aside, this article did not really had me until it is mentioned of the new trackpad. Initially, I thought that Apple went off the deep end by going from one button to NO buttons. But in the end, the right and left click is simply a finger or two down away from touching the pad to make the click.

It is a SHAME that Anand had many troubles with the fickleness of the pad - and even moreso in Windows. Big deal breaker (alongside the annoyance of the newly adopted displayport with no included adapter (nickel and dime? at the very least monitor manufacturers include BOTH the DVI and VGA cable with each monitor, wmy not Apple?).

Features aside, I do agree while that many (including myself) equate Apple to the USSR of the computing world, they do put together a nice OVERALL package compared to other manufacturers. Next revision Apple.... you almost had me with this one... ALMOST. Get your windows stuff and hardware support together and well talk (yes and that includes supporting ALL of your "gestures" in the Windows platform too - yeah fat chance in hell). Reply

The Windows issues should hopefully be fixed with the next BootCamp driver update.

But I have to agree about the glass/glossy reflectiveness. I really hope Apple brings back a matte option, which is unlikely, or at least find some way to reduce the reflectivity in the next refresh. Reply

"In testing the first batch of Centrino 2 notebooks that Jarred received he noted that he can't seem to find a mainstream notebook with a 50 - 60WHr battery that can come close to offering the sort of battery life you get out of the Macs."

You're not looking hard enough. The lenovo thinkpad T400 registered 6.5 hrs with wireless on using a 56 WHr battery.

"With the T400 you can reach 9 hours and 41 minutes with the wireless enabled, screen backlight at 60%, and the laptop in integrated graphics mode using only the 84Wh 9-cell battery. In this situation the notebook is only consuming roughly 8.5 watts of power. In dedicated graphics mode under the same settings battery life falls by exactly 2 hours down to 7 hours and 41 minutes, and power draw increases to 10.5 watts. The 6-cell battery managed 6 hours and 4 hours and 28 minutes respectively."

No mention is made of actually *surfing* the web - WiFi is merely enabled. Without knowing more about how they conduct their battery life testing, I can't say whether their numbers are comparable to ours. What I do know is that on the notebook I mentioned in an earlier comment, battery life almost doubles (142 minutes vs. 261 minutes) when I go from web surfing to idle. Reply

The buttonless mouse is the dumbest idea. For example, if I have to press 1 finger for left click, 2 fingers on the pad for right click, how do I press both buttons? In addition, if scroll is done by moving 2 fingers, how does it not get confused with dragging with right mouse button? Furthermore, the lack of tactile feedback also reduces productivity. So much for another innovative design. Reply

1) Why would you need to do a simultaneous left and right click?
2) Why would you drag with the right mouse button? (also refer to below)
3) It DOES have tactile feedback. The whole trackpad is a depressible button...

Take your biased ideas elsewhere, thanks. Apple does good for the PC industry and provides an alternative to Microsoft-based solutions. Whether they're better or not is entirely a matter of opinion, but the bottom line is that they provide competition, and competition is good for everyone. Reply

1 - For pasting in *nix applications, at least that's what I use on a conventional mouse.
2 - Right click drag in Windows lets you choose the file behaviour (move, copy, create shortcut) whereas a standard left click drag will just do a default action.

I didn't say it was for *nix, that's why I said *nix applications which still use the middle mouse button in other operating systems. There are many times when there isn't space for using a mouse, hence it's a laptop.

As for keyboard shortcuts, they're not faster when using a mouse as it means a break from the sequence rather than just clicking with the mouse that's in use anyway Reply

There was a time when cars were changed and tweaked every single year, often for purely aesthetic/emotional reasons. That is no longer true. The average enthusiast car shopper is no less spec-conscious than PC geeks. And likewise the majority, and especially in the high-end/luxury market (Lexus, Apple) that is composed less by knowledgeable enthusiasts and more by people craving a certain image or experience, tend to shop based upon style, price, or other easy-to-understand factors. Reply

wrong. If people were "spec-conscious" about what they drive and getting performance was priority #1, then we'd see thousands of motorcycles on the freeways instead of dozens. You can spend $8,000 and get a motorcycle that is faster than any car made, gets 50 mpg, and can still carry a few bags of groceries.

People buy nice cars because they can afford it and like the aesthetics.
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Just a note, but I've read elsewhere that under Windows, the graphics on the MBP always use the 9600 chip; I'm sure this accounts for part of the difference in battery life (assuming you ran the OSX tests using the integrated 9400 video. Reply

I don't see why, XP isn't a limitation on anything useful unless you were just talking about the eye candy of OS X... See how many businesses still supply their laptops with XP rather than the junk they're supplied with because they're not tethered to Microsoft like the manufacturers. Reply

What about testing power use under XP I mean
XP compares more favourably to Mac OS (or anything else) than Vista, and I wanted to know if that excessive power use is Vista-only, or if it does appear on Windows XP too Reply

yeh I agree the diff will be how the OS is set to manage each device etc etc...

On my Sony laptop i get around 2 hours on high performance and a bit over 5 hours on battery saving...

The results they posted dont really tell us much other then a bootcamp vista install isnt as good as an osx install at managing power on apple laptop... amazing right?

I am sure if i dont use the Sony install and tool/drviers etc I will also get less battery life on my laptop. So the question would be do you think apple put more effort into power management on their OSX install then they did for Vista? Reply

Let me just say that I've tried testing various power saver setting under Vista on several notebooks (see review on Friday) and I just can't get anywhere near 5 hours of battery life. Sure, the CPUs are a bit higher spec on some of the notebooks, but as one example a 12.1" laptop with 55 Whr battery, 320GB 5400RPM HDD, 4GB RAM, LED backlighting, and P8400 pulls an "amazing" 138 minutes of DVD playback and 142 minutes of web surfing... though it does manage 261 minutes when sitting idle at the desktop.

As best I can tell, the CPU and HDD just don't seem to be entering sleep modes much if at all, unless the system is 100% idle. Even then, 261 minutes idle battery life doesn't compare favorably to the MacBook pulling 286 minutes of web surfing.

How big is the Sony battery, if I may ask? (Just for reference, take Voltage * mAhr to get Whr.) What sort of CPU, GPU, HDD, RAM does it use? What we need to see to prove it's possible is a Vista laptop with a 20W TDP CPU, 2GB RAM, 5400 RPM HDD, and 13.3" LED backlit LCD that can still get close to five hours of battery life with a 55 Whr battery. If you think you have one, get the manufacturer to send me one for review! :) Reply

Do normal users disable SuperFetch? I've disabled indexing as much as I know how, since I don't use it, but SuperFetch is part of Vista. Besides, it shouldn't run on battery power (and neither should indexing). Reply

If you want to actually test Vista battery life, install the OS and use it for a week before testing the battery life. I agree with the other poster that both the indexer and SuperFetch are great features, but they do spin the harddrive when the computer is idle until the index is built and SuperFetch learns what you use most often.

Spinning harddrive = lower battery life

Comparing battery life between Vista and OS X is like comparing the time it takes to eat a pomegranate and an apple. Reply

no, battery tests let people know how long they can use their computer without plugging it in.

You're not comprehending the article- the PC laptops are also being tested at idle, just sitting there doing nothing. If Vista is going to spend that entire time "superfetching" nothing, that's a problem. Reply

I wouldn't be surprised if there's just some glitch on many of the laptops that's keeping battery life down, but until some manufacturer can deliver Vista with 55 Whr and 5 hours (give or take) battery life I remain skeptical. Users shouldn't have to hack their laptop in any way to get the increased battery life; it should just work properly out of the box. You know, like the MacBooks with OS X. Reply

If you're basing this on the reflectivity of the screens, you need to look at them in person. The pictures are misleading, in that the new MBP is positioned to be reflecting a wall in direct daylight, and the one on the left is reflecting a wall in shadows. The new MBP is a pretty glossy screen. I have one, and I used to have a matte MBP. But the screen is, nevertheless, beautiful. Don't make up your mind until you see it in person. Reply